“If you want to be heard by your senator, you’d better hire a lobbyist!!!!”
“If you want to be heard by your senator, you’d better hire a lobbyist!!!!”
By KEVIN STODA
PUBLIC CITIZEN has written its readers recently of an important experiment for political scientists to follow-up on.
Will political scientists follow-up on this?
I DOUBT IT. I raised the issues pertinent to the findings of the experiment with a circle political scientists (experts in American Institutions) several years ago. They just snickered—as though they didn’t have any business in doing anything but reporting on the U.S. government and creating a theory about how it functions.
Will Progressives get a bigger stick and get American governments to change the status-Quo?
THE ONLY WAY TO CHANGE THE SYSTEM is to reform the outdated U.S.A. Constitution. This will require state level constitution en masse in 2011. Are progressives ready to act?
THE ARTICLE
“Want an appointment with a senator?
Better hope you’re a lobbyist
A Colorado business consultant tried a little experiment during the health care debate: He called senators’ office and asked for an appointment. Sometimes he called as a private citizen, sometimes as a business lobbyist. As a lobbyist, he got meetings with senators nearly four times as often as when he was seeking a meeting as a concerned citizen. As a lobbyist, he scored 25 meetings with staffers and two with senators; but as a citizen, not a single senator would meet with him to discuss the health care bill.”
This story was revealed on NBC Washington in-full in a piece named, “Senators Welcome Lobbyists, Shun Citizens”.
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/politics/Senators-Welcome-Lobbyists-Shun-Citizens-107041488.html?__source=Newsletter-Daily
The FULL STORY began: “What would happen if an average citizen, a complete unknown, were to contact the office of every U.S. senator and ask for a meeting to discuss a certain Senate bill of interest? And then what would happen if that same unknown were to register as a federal lobbyist, contact each Senate office again, and request a meeting to discuss the same bill?”
“That’s the intriguing question that business consultant Josh Brodbeck of Colorado set out to answer. What did he find? Exactly what you’d expect.”
The bottom line for Josh Brodbeck and we millions of private American citizens is “[f]or now, though, if you want to be heard by your senator, you’d better hire a lobbyist.”
THE EXPERIMENT“Last April, Brodbeck contacted each of the 100 senators’ offices, seeking a meeting to discuss then-pending health care legislation as an everyday American. A month later, he contacted each office again -- this time as a registered federal lobbyist. All other variables remained unchanged.”
CONCLUSION“Brodbeck the lobbyist got a meeting nearly four times as often as Brodbeck the concerned citizen. Nearly two out of three requests in his lobbyist guise were granted, while only a bit more than one in four offices agreed to see Brodbeck the non-lobbyist. That’s not all: Lobbyist Brodbeck was usually granted meetings with higher-level Senate staffers than Citizen Brodbeck.”
In all, “Lobbyist Brodbeck secured 25 meetings with staff members and two with senators themselves; Citizen Brodbeck got just seven staff meetings. No senator agreed to meet with the private citizen to discuss the massive health care overhaul. There was no discernible difference between Democratic and Republican Senate offices in terms of how they responded. Newer senators, and those up for re-election soon, were more likely to meet with private citizens. Veteran senators were more likely to ignore citizen requests.”
NBC SOFTENS THE IMPACT of the ARTICLEAlthough 74% of those taking part in an online opinion poll of this NBC article on Brodbeck’s experiment have indicated they are “furious” at what they are reading, NBC pooh-poohs the findings to some degree.
NBC notes, “This [These findings] shouldn’t be too shocking, and it’s [they are] not necessarily damning. Lobbyists are not inherently bad guys -- many represent nonprofit groups, notable causes, and interests of concern to many individuals. (In this study, however, Brodback secured permission to use the name of a real company as his client, and it was made clear that he was representing a business interest.) Plus, lobbyists often have concrete proposals to discuss, rather than just offering their sense of legislation.”
Moreover, “Senators also do not have time to meet directly with everyone who wants to drop by, nor do their staff members. In theory, that’s what the House of Representatives was set up for, but that’s less and less possible now, with each House member representing 700,000 people, or about 25 times as many as when the Constitution was drafted.”
On the other hand, the author of the piece on NBC, P.J. Orvetti, at least makes the suggestion that the Senate and Congress need to have a greater number of representatives in order to give more access to the private American. Orvetti wrote, “Though the notion of a Congress of a thousand representatives or more may make government-bashers queasy, it would make each one more attentive to citizens. Others say social media and other new technologies will solve the problem, by making it easier for legislators to communicate directly with citizens.”
By KEVIN STODA
PUBLIC CITIZEN has written its readers recently of an important experiment for political scientists to follow-up on.
Will political scientists follow-up on this?
I DOUBT IT. I raised the issues pertinent to the findings of the experiment with a circle political scientists (experts in American Institutions) several years ago. They just snickered—as though they didn’t have any business in doing anything but reporting on the U.S. government and creating a theory about how it functions.
Will Progressives get a bigger stick and get American governments to change the status-Quo?
THE ONLY WAY TO CHANGE THE SYSTEM is to reform the outdated U.S.A. Constitution. This will require state level constitution en masse in 2011. Are progressives ready to act?
THE ARTICLE
“Want an appointment with a senator?
Better hope you’re a lobbyist
A Colorado business consultant tried a little experiment during the health care debate: He called senators’ office and asked for an appointment. Sometimes he called as a private citizen, sometimes as a business lobbyist. As a lobbyist, he got meetings with senators nearly four times as often as when he was seeking a meeting as a concerned citizen. As a lobbyist, he scored 25 meetings with staffers and two with senators; but as a citizen, not a single senator would meet with him to discuss the health care bill.”
This story was revealed on NBC Washington in-full in a piece named, “Senators Welcome Lobbyists, Shun Citizens”.
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/politics/Senators-Welcome-Lobbyists-Shun-Citizens-107041488.html?__source=Newsletter-Daily
The FULL STORY began: “What would happen if an average citizen, a complete unknown, were to contact the office of every U.S. senator and ask for a meeting to discuss a certain Senate bill of interest? And then what would happen if that same unknown were to register as a federal lobbyist, contact each Senate office again, and request a meeting to discuss the same bill?”
“That’s the intriguing question that business consultant Josh Brodbeck of Colorado set out to answer. What did he find? Exactly what you’d expect.”
The bottom line for Josh Brodbeck and we millions of private American citizens is “[f]or now, though, if you want to be heard by your senator, you’d better hire a lobbyist.”
THE EXPERIMENT“Last April, Brodbeck contacted each of the 100 senators’ offices, seeking a meeting to discuss then-pending health care legislation as an everyday American. A month later, he contacted each office again -- this time as a registered federal lobbyist. All other variables remained unchanged.”
CONCLUSION“Brodbeck the lobbyist got a meeting nearly four times as often as Brodbeck the concerned citizen. Nearly two out of three requests in his lobbyist guise were granted, while only a bit more than one in four offices agreed to see Brodbeck the non-lobbyist. That’s not all: Lobbyist Brodbeck was usually granted meetings with higher-level Senate staffers than Citizen Brodbeck.”
In all, “Lobbyist Brodbeck secured 25 meetings with staff members and two with senators themselves; Citizen Brodbeck got just seven staff meetings. No senator agreed to meet with the private citizen to discuss the massive health care overhaul. There was no discernible difference between Democratic and Republican Senate offices in terms of how they responded. Newer senators, and those up for re-election soon, were more likely to meet with private citizens. Veteran senators were more likely to ignore citizen requests.”
NBC SOFTENS THE IMPACT of the ARTICLEAlthough 74% of those taking part in an online opinion poll of this NBC article on Brodbeck’s experiment have indicated they are “furious” at what they are reading, NBC pooh-poohs the findings to some degree.
NBC notes, “This [These findings] shouldn’t be too shocking, and it’s [they are] not necessarily damning. Lobbyists are not inherently bad guys -- many represent nonprofit groups, notable causes, and interests of concern to many individuals. (In this study, however, Brodback secured permission to use the name of a real company as his client, and it was made clear that he was representing a business interest.) Plus, lobbyists often have concrete proposals to discuss, rather than just offering their sense of legislation.”
Moreover, “Senators also do not have time to meet directly with everyone who wants to drop by, nor do their staff members. In theory, that’s what the House of Representatives was set up for, but that’s less and less possible now, with each House member representing 700,000 people, or about 25 times as many as when the Constitution was drafted.”
On the other hand, the author of the piece on NBC, P.J. Orvetti, at least makes the suggestion that the Senate and Congress need to have a greater number of representatives in order to give more access to the private American. Orvetti wrote, “Though the notion of a Congress of a thousand representatives or more may make government-bashers queasy, it would make each one more attentive to citizens. Others say social media and other new technologies will solve the problem, by making it easier for legislators to communicate directly with citizens.”
posted by Kevin Anthony Stoda at 5:17 AM
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